John Donne–The Sun Rising

“The Sun Rising” is my favorite poem.  A lot of people think it is just about lovers and the sun–but it is not.  At first, the Sun is given formal standing and recognition.  As Donne becomes more confident, he demotes the Sun to sun. 

Donne was actually a very spiritual man. Human love and understanding–and prefering it to God is what the poems stands for.  Donne sends the sun away–as if he could do so.  Human arrogance is what it denotes.

The last line-his bed is the centre of the universe and his walls are the sphere.  Those represent pleasure and the world respectively.  Basically, Donne is telling God that  pleasure and the world are his and his lover’s–isn’t that what each of us does each time we do not recognize God as the center in our lives?

Donne is my favorite poet in many ways; it is mainly because he tempts human arrogance for luminary  responses.

Enjoy:

 

 

The Sun Rising      Busy old fool, unruly Sun,      Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?      Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide      Late school-boys and sour prentices,   Go tell court-huntsmen, that the king will ride,   Call country ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.     Thy beams, so reverend, and strong      Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long;      If her eyes have not blinded thine,      Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,   Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine   Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.      She’s all states, and all princes, I,      Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honour’s mimic; all wealth alchemy.      Thou sun art half as happy as we,      In that the world’s contracted thus;   Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be   To warm the world, that’s done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.